To think zero hours contracts shouldn't be banned?

[sweetbill]

It seems to me that zero hours contracts suit lots of people who want to work a few hours intermittently and flexibly. For example, students who are juggling academic timetables with sport and social life, who might not realistically be able to commit to regular hours, or people who want to work a few hours in addition to another job, but only when they're not too busy with other things.

So I don't understand why Labour want to ban them. Apparently Kier Starmer said at the labour conference that to raise a family people need jobs with “security and certainty”, and that Labour would ban zero hours contracts and replace them with regular contracts which actually reflect the hours normally work.. But there are plenty of jobs with non-zero hour contracts, so people do have a choice - what about the many people who aren't raising a family and are just working for extra pocket money or to top up their student loan? Why should they be penalised? Could there perhaps be a compromise where they are only banned for people working more than a certain number of hours a week?
Disclaimer: I"m a floating voter, so not coming at this from a political standpoint, but something like this would potentially influence my vote as members of my family have benefitted from the flexibility of zero hours contracts.

[Hawkins001]

@LarryTrotter

Tell me you're privileged without telling me you're privileged.

And your point is ?

[Isaidnoalready]

They are massively abused so imagine getting a job zero hours your assured you don't need to do weekends and of course school hours is perfect for the company they have loads of people who do just early and just lates you will fit in fine first rota comes in weekends and evenings you say I can't do that its too late the rota is done but I can't physically do those hours your childcare isn't our issue your hours are there you need to do them you think zero hours means you can say no so you do that and suddenly you don't get any more calls for work your effectively fired without actually being fired

Fucking useless

[N4mechanged]

Name changed for this. I work in a company that uses these a lot. We work primarily with government clients. Government procurement is fucked without them. One of the main ways government has 'saved' money on their pwn spend in the last 15 years is by making people redundant then rehiring them through suppliers using 0 hr contracts. Keir Starmer can promise till the cows come home, I don't believe he will follow through for a second, the price to central government will be too high.

As a business we'd be quite happy to offer more stability and employ people but the terms of our contracts with govt often make this impossible (or would make us so uncompetitive that we might as well not bother tendering).

We try to offer as long term and stable hours as we can, and we never penalise people for not being available by the way.

[lunchablefan200]

Because they don’t always offer flexibility. I have said no to extra shifts etc and then get punished by being given no hours for weeks.

[cawfeee]

I have a zero hours contract at the moment, I just give my availability each week and work those hours, if I want more hours I will get them. The flexibility works for me.
Its like a previous poster said, it people needing a fixed amount of hours and salary working them that struggle with them.
They shouldn't be forced onto people people claiming benefits and maybe some legislation could be brought in to enable people to opt in or out of them.

[Florenz]

The NMW for zero hours jobs should be higher than it is for jobs with F/T hours.

[PastMyBestBeforeDate]

There are at least two types of zero hours contracts. One is mutually beneficial and the other's exploitative. We do need to ban the exploitative one but allow the other. Maybe making accepting a zero hours contract isn't compulsory if you're on benefits would be a start.

[HotPenguin]

You can't get a rental contract or a mortgage with a zero hours contract. Might be ok for a student but not for the vast majority of people.

[fpurplea]

People have such blinkered viewpoints about ZHCs, it's not all about Sports Direct et al. They don't need banning. They need tighter regulating, mostly by actually enforcing the existing employment laws around them. Exploitative ZHCs should absolutely be regulated out of existence. But for some industries / companies / individuals, ZHCs are literally the only workable solution.

16 years in the entertainment industry. HMRC forced one of the companies I work for to make us all PAYE on ZHC rather than freelance contractors when they changed the rules around 2007. We get by law holiday pay, sick pay, maternity pay, pension scheme enrollment, safetywear allowance, furlough etc. No exclusivity, free to say no to shifts. You work when and where the gigs are, so hours are all over the place, but busy times are broadly seasonal, so you budget for the lean months by working like crazy during silly season and working for other companies. This company is the absolute model of ZHCs used in exactly the spirit they should be, at great cost to the business. Blanket ban them, then there is no viable, legal solution for them to employ staff, ironically leaving the field open to all the companies currently flouting the law and exploiting their staff by claiming they are are self employed.

[Kite22]

Exactly @fpurplea
It really, really isn't just people who are students who need, or like zero hour contracts (though of course it does suit so many of them).
One place my ds worked had

• parents who wanted school hours / term time working and the hours they didn't like were really popular with 6th formers and students
• two people who had medical conditions that were fine for a while then flared up and they didn't want to work at those time
• carers who wanted to work but also needed times when they didn't work either for appointments or for when the person they were caring for needed them more
• people that travelled - they'd work for a few months then go off somewhere, travelling for 6 weeks or 3 months
• outdoor folk (It was an outdoor shop) where they would regularly want to go off into the mountains for 5 days or a week - more than regular AL would allow - but then be happy to work longer hours when they were at home (and of course bring first hand knowledge to the sales team, having used a lot of the equipment themselves)
• someone who like to work the Winter and go off and teach sailing in the Summer
• someone who used to work the Summer and go off and work in a ski resort in the Winter
• someone who worked around their partner's odd shifts

There are millions of people who don't want to work 9 - 5 x 5 days a week x 46 or 47 weeks a year. Zero hours contracts works for all sorts of reasons when well done .
Yes there are those that abuse it. Equally there are those that abuse all sorts of employment laws, or the spirit of those laws.